I was wondering how you planned on keeping the astronauts alive during transit. My senior design project in aerospace engineering at UIUC, along with 5 others, was to design a transit vehicle to Mars to orbit and return to Earth for 6 astronauts in 15 months.

There were multiple issues that came up such as the need for 8-9 launches for the necessary equipment and structures to go into space, the effects of microgravity on the human body and of course radiation.
I have a ton of questions for you, if you do not mind. My specialty was ECLSS and so I will be focusing on that primarily.

In-situ resource gathering is obviously different but what are the plans for the transit vehicle? It states on your website that you will be using ISS technologies for the majority of the ECLSS system. However, the WRS is only about 94-95% efficient and the reports I found stated that about 900 kg of water a year is required to support it. A human in space requires about 30 kg/day for daily needs according to Dr. Hanford. Wouldn't it be better to utilize the VPCAR system instead? Also the WRS requires a mechanical compressor in space in order to separate air and the waste water. My question is what decision was to utilize the WRS as opposed to newer technology especially that of a TRL of 6 or higher.

The plan is to send 2500 kg of food in the year 2014. Would the food last for 8 years? Would that amount of food be enough for four astronauts for an extended period of time? Assuming that plants survived this would not be too large of an issue, however, it is not clear if plants could survive in the martian atmosphere. Would it be better to include a biomass production facility instead? How many refrigeration units would be required and how would they be powered?

The Falcon Heavy is not yet manrated or has even flown. If there was a delay in production of the Falcon Heavy would the Atlas or the Delta line of rockets have a large enough fairing diameter to house your payload?

I'm not sure how large the modules are, but would they allow at least 20 m3 of habitable volume for each human? This is the optimal case for such a long duration mission according to Human Spaceflight: Mission Analysis and Design.

How would waste be handled in transit and on Mars? In transit would it be jettisoned or stored as fertilizer? On Mars would the same occur? Which leads to:

If plants were grown would they be grown hydroponically or through soil? What plants would be brought and if grown hydroponically would the Hoagland's solution be stored or produced?

Would it be possible the shift the mission if a launch would fail? If a launch were to fail would there be a delay in the timeline?

On the website you state that it would be funded like a Truman Show type method. Would this be beneficial for the astronauts’ psyche? They are are going to be stuck for 7 months with each other and then on Mars. This was a major issue during the NASA programs.

What type of suit would be utilized? An EMU based or Orlan based suit?

Would spacewalks be necessary for the ships? Who would perform them? With only four people during transit how would they be divided? How many suits would be required?

The biggest limitation to the project seemed to be the human limits of radiation and microgravity. On the website it is stated that we are constantly bombarded by cosmic rays, however, the Earth's magnetic field protects us from this background radiation. Radiation was not my specialty in this project so forgive me if I make mistakes.

What methods would be used to protect against SPE? How much radiation would they incur over the 7 months in the current ships design? How much on Mars itself? It is still unclear if 2023 will be within a solar maximum until 2016. If it were to change could the mission be rescheduled.

On microgravity:

Osteoporosis is not the only problem and while exercise and training can help mitigate the loss it is definitely not possible to stop it at all. What about the loss of blood and muscle that occurs from deep space travel? Most astronauts lose 2-3% of bone mass a month and regain it at a very slow rate through rigorous therapy on Earth. At 0.3 g it does not seem likely the astronauts will be able to regain it. There's also no indication that any fraction of Earth’s gravity is beneficial to humans.

Thank you for your time. It seemed that throughout the course of this project it was not very feasible to get to Mars in a decade and I was wondering how the Mars-One team was planning on addressing this along with many other problems that may arise.

Thanks. I figured that I wouldn't get a response and if they did it would be mostly bullshit. This was 2 semesters of my life and for them to state they can do this in 10 years was a total scam. I guess this was just my way of testing them to see if it was possible.

They said a thing they want to introduce to Mars after the second shuttle launch is "a brick-making machine". I think there might be more important things for the 4 astronauts who make the landing. Imagine the guy--"I've been living here basically in prison with these 3 other guys for two years. Can't wait for "a brick making machine to help create an even bigger Living Unit"! (http://mars-one.com/mission/mankind-on-mars)

Brick is one component of a habitable structure. It provides mostly compressive strength, and like you said it isn't airtight. I imagine a brick-based structure being somewhat like a vault underground. The vault would be buried deep enough that the weight of regolith on top would keep the structure from exploding. The vault would be made with a simple arched design, and lined with an airtight material such as plastic or mylar to prevent gas escaping. Airlocks would be built into the access tunnel. Possibly, one or more capsules would be cannibalized to use as airlocks, though there are other options.

doesn't this defeat the purpose of bricks then, when all you need is an airtight fault? sorry but the difference between .16psi and 14.9 are staggering. do the simple math conversion, and it is 100x of a difference, we humans, would notice that, and die very very very very fucking quickly in that environment. we would literally boil off at that pressure, as you probably know, the lower the pressure, the lower the melting point of water, and vice versa/obviously.

Airtight vaults are nice, but airtight vaults with radiation shielding are better. Three meters of regolith will do a good bit to lessen radiation. It won't be Earth-atmosphere-equivalent, but it will be better than a shelter on the surface.

Having the bricks makes building the airtight vault less expensive. Instead of having to ship up a pressure-tight vault vessel from Earth and wait six months to two years, you can instead make a few thousand bricks, dig a trench, and build a structurally sound vault. Then you line it with whatever epoxy you can cook up using regolith-derived chemicals, and viola! Locally-sourced shelter.

Being able to manufacture your own shelters lessens the supply chain ties to Earth and increases the colony's self-sufficiency.

We have been extremely busy with the launch of our plan, and we have now finally found the time to answer some of your more technical questions. We will use those answers as the basis of a number of new FAQs on our website. We’d like to thank Reddit and all other contributors for their thoughts!

The fact that Mars One is organizing a one way trip greatly simplifies the problem compared to other mission designs. The trip to Mars is about 210 days, so even without any recycling, the transit vehicle would only require roughly 2500 liters of water. There would still have to be a system to condense water from the transit habitat atmosphere, which will result in more water available to the crew. This is just one possible solution. There could be better solutions. The important thing is that we know that there are solutions for the problem.

Mars One is not an aerospace company. We are not going to build the space systems. Mars One has identified suppliers who can produce the equipment we need. We do not state that we will use ISS technology; we only state that our supplier is one of the suppliers for LSS systems of the ISS. It would be silly to use ISS systems, because Mars has gravity. Our suppliers will design equipment for Mars One that is best for use on Mars. They are experts on life support systems.

On Mars we use 50 liters of water per day in our calculations for the life support system.

Question by elitezero on the food that is sent in 2016:

Food or other supplier will be sent in 2016. We have another supply mission in 2020, which can contain food which cannot be stored long enough. There are emergency rations that will last for decades (even if the package says differently). They are not haute cuisine, but the astronauts are not supposed to eat them – they will grow their own food. The packaged food is for emergencies only.

Plants can’t survive the Martian atmosphere. The plants will be grown in Plant Production Units for example from www.plantlab.nl. We are assuming about 45 m2 for growing plants – more than enough for two crews (including not using all m2 in winter). This means that we can produce the emergency rations for the second crew on Mars so we don’t have to launch it from Earth. You don’t have to freeze all food (flour, potato flour, rice). We will make sure there is enough freezer space and they will be powered by the solar panels.

Question by elitezero on the Falcon Heavy:

SpaceX expects to have the Falcon Heavy maiden flight in 2013 – we need it by 2016 so even if they have delays it will arrive well on time. The astronauts will be launched in a regular Falcon 9. Furthermore, the Falcon Heavy will be man rated as you can read on the SpaceX website: http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php.

The Atlas and Delta lines do not have enough payload capacity and their fairing diameter is indeed too small for our plans.

If other heavy launchers become available, we could consider using them.

Question by elitezero on the available living space per person:

Elitezero mentions that the optimal volume per person for long space missions is 20m3. The Mars habitat will have about 1000 m3 or 250 m3 per human. Our people are going to stay on Mars for a long time, so we want to give them as much comfort as possible. Even if one inflatable is damaged beyond repair, there is enough volume available.

The transit habitat will have slightly less than 20m3 – not optimal, definitely. The trip to Mars will be no fun, as we explain in http://mars-one.com/en/mission/mankind-on-mars. Mars One is proposing a mission of true exploration, not luxurious living in space.

The ship that Columbus sailed across the Atlantic had less than 10m3 per person.

Question by elitezero on storage and recycling of waste:

In transit waste will be stored. The transit habitat will not enter Mars orbit, only the lander will.
On Mars most waste will be recycled. We have more than enough storage space on Mars to store a lot too, especially in the first years. Better recycling equipment will come each year.

Question by elitezero on growing plants:

The food will be grown hydroponically. Most of the nutrients will be brought from Earth at first – of course the only long term solution is to produce them on Mars. The nutrients will be mixed in the plant production unit for each type of crop separately.

Question by elitezero on the effects of a launch failure:

A launch failure would result in a delay of two years.

Question by elitezero on the effects of the reality TV aspect on the astronauts, combined with a lot of general comments like ‘oh no, Big Brother on Mars!’:

Mars One’s goal is not to organize a media spectacle; our goal is to put humans on Mars by 2023. As entrepreneurs we think that the only way this is possible in the near term is by doing it commercially. And the only business case that we can think of is creating a media spectacle around it. Perhaps Reddit members can suggest other business cases, we are very interested. Please post them here, but also respond on our contact page please: http://mars-one.com/en/about-mars-one/contact

From the business point of view, the media spectacle is interesting because you can generate revenues and get interest of sponsors before actually going to Mars.

Reality TV has a very negative ring to it. This is caused in part by recent shows where producers throw non-reality things to make the show juicy enough to attract enough viewers. This will not be required for the Mars One mission: the adventure of going to Mars and settling on a new planet is exciting enough by itself. Perhaps we should call it live coverage – were you appalled by the moon landings? That was also live coverage. Perhaps we should start calling it 24/7 live coverage.

Besides the fact that the media spectacle is the only way to finance the mission, it is also just really interesting for all the people remaining on Earth to see the first human settlement on a new planet live. We expect millions of applications for the jobs of the astronauts, but only four people get to go. All the applicants who did not make it will at least be able to experience their dream second-hand. And all the people on Earth who would never leave their life on Earth, but are intrigued by the prospect of humans settling on Mars will also be able to watch.

Imagine that we had video recordings of Columbus’ journey in 1492!

Personally, I would love to see how the astronauts land on Mars, start construction on their habitat, cooperate, discuss, laugh and live. And there are many people who do. I would hate it if this was happening and all we got to see was the weekly one-hour update!

Our astronauts will make a trade-off. They give up their life on Earth and part of their privacy, but in return they get to live their dream. They are going to be the first humans on Mars! They will be the best of the best, selected from millions of applicants. They will be very smart, stable and healthy people. They will make a very conscious decision. They will be trained, also for being stuck with each other. We will build an analog base in a desert where all final groups will be tested for several times (e.g. once per two years) for about three months in Mars-like conditions, including the cameras. They can always back out - until they have left the Earth that is.

If you are a person who dreams of going to Mars, would you decline if cameras were coming along?

Question by elitezero on the Mars suits:

The assembly crew will probably have space suits with mobility systems. The Mars crew will not. The Orlan suit is made by a Russian supplier – so far we have only talked to US suppliers for the Mars suits.

Question by elitezero on assembly of the Transit vehicle:

The transit vehicle will be assembled by a separate assembly crew that is launched in a separate launcher. They will assemble the transit vehicle. The crew will arrive when it is ready and take over the ship. The assembly crew will land and the Mars crew will depart when everything is checked.

The astronauts going to Mars will carry space suits. If all goes well they won’t use them. They have the capability to do emergency EVA’s in case something outside is wrong on the way to Mars.

I have reached 10.000 characters in my post, so I have spread the answers over two posts!Thank you, elitezero and other Redditors, for your very good questions.

We have been extremely busy with the launch of our plan, and we have now finally found the time to answer some of your more technical questions. We will use those answers as the basis of a number of new FAQs on our website. We’d like to thank Reddit and all other contributors for their thoughts!

Question by elitezero on radiation and solar proton events:

Radiation is indeed a big issue, but it is no magic. Radiation can be limited by shielding. We will leave the details of the design of the Transit vehicle up to our supplier, and radiation protection will of course be in the requirements.

Also for radiation, our one way trip helps: the radiation during the trip will be roughly half of the ESA mission design in the document.

You can also find in the ESA document that the daily radiation on Mars is not a major issue. What improves the situation for our astronauts compared to the ESA calculations: our habitat will be buried under a thick layer of sand. The astronauts will not perform EVAs during solar storms. Furthermore due to satellites in Solar orbit from NASA and ESA, astronauts can be warned that a storm is coming such that they have ample time to go into the shelter of the habitat.

As a final remark, the current radiation limits for radiation workers on Earth seem to be rather on the extreme side of safety without clear evidence why. There are places on Earth were the natural background radiation is 10 to 20 times higher than the current accepted limits without any effects on the local people. So we also need to be careful here not to overspecifiy the radiation requirements.

Question by elitezero on microgravity and bone loss:

In space, astronauts lose bone mass. When back on Earth, the bones recover slowly.

Currently, NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station engage in extensive daily exercises as a may to mitigate the gradual reduction of bone tissue, but this regimen, intense as it may be, still does not totally prevent bone loss in space. Our astronauts will also be engaged in a very rigorous training program.

A lot of work is done on medicine to prevent bone loss in space. Results are very promising, especially considering that our astronauts leave still 10 years from now.

And they are not going to stay in space much longer than an ISS astronauts – after the trip they will be on a planet with gravity. The lower gravity of Mars will make it easier for the astronauts to cope with their bone loss and other physical deterioration. There are no indications that a fraction of the Earth’s gravity is bad for humans, we simply don’t know yet. We do know that training, even in 0 g reduces the effects. It is very likely that living in Martian gravity combined with exercise and medicine will solve the problem.

Will the reality TV stay interesting?

There is a big difference between the Apollo mission, the ISS and our mission. Our mission will be one of exploration. It will truly be the next giant leap for mankind. And who gets to go to Mars will be selected, at least in part, by the audience such that they will be interesting people to watch.

The reason that people stopped watching the moon landings pretty soon was that nothing really new happened after the first time, and that the moon astronauts were ‘doing their job’. Most jobs are not so interesting to watch. You will experience life on Mars through our astronaut’s eyes. This is what interests people. We have discussed this with many media experts.

How does this make money?

A human Mars mission will attract attention from everyone in the world. The three weeks around the launch and the three weeks around landing there will be world wide attention comparable to or superior to the Olympics. After landing, large audiences will return regularly to check how the people on Mars are doing.

Check out on page 6 of this document how much money is involved in the Olympics. And don’t forget that the Olympics run only three weeks per two years.

Public interest will probably be much smaller before launch, but selection procedures and training in the analog station in the desert will also be very interesting content.

The Mars One team is not qualified to send humans to space

Mars One is not an aerospace company. We will not launch rockets or build space hardware. We will purchase all equipment required for our plan. Our plan consists of ten major components and we have already found suppliers for all those components.

I have reached 10.000 characters in my post, so I have spread the answers over two posts! Thank you, elitezero and other Redditors, for your very good questions.

the current radiation limits for radiation workers on Earth seem to be rather on the extreme side of safety without clear evidence why.

EPA radiation limits on radiation workers (50 mSv) are set as one half of the lowest dose clearly linked to an increased cancer risk (100 mSv). I'd say this is a very reasonable limit, especially considering the fact that doses in that range can still pose an increased cancer risk, albeit not one that is "clearly linked to an increased risk". Radiation exposure is cumulative, and it can take a long time for the effects to surface.

There are places on Earth were the natural background radiation is 10 to 20 times higher than the current accepted limits without any effects on the local people.

10 times the accepted limit for a radiation worker equates to 5 Sv, if this dose is received in a short period of time, the exposed person will show symptoms of radiation poisoning.

So we also need to be careful here not to overspecifiy the radiation requirements.

Radiation exposure is a critical issue that must be resolved, it is one that should not be taken lightly. Overspecifying is better than underspecifying since you will never get it spot on.

RASC-AL high five, by the way. Didn't I see you in FL? Let's team this guy up with the MIT group and their plans.

Edit: I say the biggest limit is that Nuclear-thermal rocket engines are off-limits, practically-speaking. They could shorten transit times to where the flight is survivable to humans with feasible shielding needs. Once on Mars there are ways to reduce SPE (For one, it's cut by half on any rocky body). But in space for months makes things dicey.

There aren't many good answers for SPE/GCR. Honestly, your best bet is to block the SPE you can and run quickly to avoid the GCR. It pretty much takes a large chunk of rock or a very large magnetic field to attenuate GCR notably.

What do you mean by that? The distance from Earth to Mars varies from 58 million kilometers to 402 million kilometers multiple times per year, as Earth and Mars' orbits sync up. The "nearest Mars in decades" is pure hype, based on a Mars-Sun distance variation of only 49 million kilometers, between 200 million kilometers and 249 million kilometers from the Sun.

Say, theoretically we have the means to send humans to Mars right now, aside from exploration and just doing it to do it, is there any benefit to people on Earth from being on Mars?

It's like going to the moon, it would be fun, yes, but we know whats up there and there is no advantages to be had from colonizing on the moon (except developing the technology for it, but that can be done anyways), it just seems like a huge burden.

There could be a plethora of resources that we are running out of here. I don't know exactly what could be found but a Wikipedia article states that due to volcanic activity and meteorites there could be ores that could be found on Mars.

Also, the overpopulation of Earth is something to consider. It is much better for a planet-based system rather than orbiting colonies around Earth. A ton of space debris would be required to be cleaned up, orbit and station keeping would be a pain and overall the problem of limited resources on Earth would not be solved.

Finding resources on Mars or asteroids can be done with robots nowadays at a faster rate and with less liability. Mining the resources, I think could also be done.

And just to note that this is just speculation. I wish I could give you a more detailed answer, but I don't have that kind of knowledge. Sorry.

Landing on the surface would be ridiculous, given the pressure is like 300 bar on the surface of venus and over 400 Celsius. But about 50-60km up in the atmosphere, the pressure is around 1 bar and the temperature varies from 0-50 celsius.

Recycling resources? Venus' atmosphere is chock-a-block with resources. CO2, Nitrogen, even water vapour. There is sunlight everywhere for power. The air we would need for breathing (nitrogen oxygen mix) is a lifting gas in Venus' dense CO2 atmosphere. We would float our colonies on large weather balloon type devices containing breathable gas. We could stroll outside, as long as we wore a breathing mask + air apparatus, and wore sufficient basic protective clothing to shield against the sulphuric acid rain / vapour.

It might sound harsh, but in reality its far better than Mars, where the slightest technical hitch means you have no easy way of producing oxygen, CO2, water, food, and so on. If your pressure suit broke on Mars, you are fucked unless you have a replacement or replacement parts. On a venusian colony, you could easily manufacture a new plastic facemask, polymer based clothing, and so on.

The colony could achieve a remarkable degree of self suffiency by processing already present resources into various plastics and polymers.

I think Venusian gravity is about 0.9G, far higher than anything shitty Mars can boast.

I also forgot to mention possibly the best and most important thing - returning men and women home.

On mars, you would most likely have to bring the fuel with you, and you are fighting gravity the moment take off. The logistics of bringing all that fuel all of that way are enormous, even for 1 man.

On venus, you could float your return vehicle as high up as possible until the atmosphere got to thin, then you detach and ignite your rockets. Less gravity and less atmosphere to contend with, and less fuel.

Also im not a rocket scientist, but you could be electrolysing water (harvested as water vapour from venus' atmosphere) to produce oxygen and hydrogen. Pretty sure liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen can be used as rocket fuel.

Venus has no magnetic field, which is probably the biggest downfall for easily converting it's CO2 atmosphere into anything human friendly (water vapor being scarce and hydrogen escaping). Realistically I can't see either planet being feasible for colonization just because of the lack of economic incentive. Until we could effectively increase the albedo of Venus or pressurize Mars, the task wouldn't be worth the cost right now. Better to focus on cheaper propulsion and exploitation of nearby objects like asteroids and the moon since they have resources that could potentially turn a profit and make the colonization of other planets much cheaper.

Economically yeah, I was proposing it more as a question to the OP as to why mars, instead of Venus or anywhere else for example, and exactly how a colony might work and be sustainable. Seemed to be very little information given there.

Out of interest, what has a lack of a magnetic field got to do with with utilising Venus' CO2 atmosphere? As I understand, no magenotsphere simply means the upper surface is buffeted by solar winds. Im sure that does have implications, but I dont understand how it would affect processing and extracting and doing whatever with CO2.

The cheapest way to utilize CO2 requires a biological solution, and for that to work you really do need H2O, but when you have no magnetic field the charged particles rip up those bonds and the hydrogen escapes into space. There are trace amounts of H2O in Venus's atmosphere because of this, the same can be said of Mars. I will certainly concede that biology engineered or brought from Earth isn't the only solution, but you would still need a steady supply of hydrogen and Venus really isn't a good planet for that. I suppose if we could build an artificial magnetosphere we could get around that problem, but that's a really daunting challenge.

I suppose if we could build an artificial magnetosphere we could get around that problem, but that's a really daunting challenge.

Arent you impressively over-engineering the problem? Why cant we just process sulphuric acid droplets from the air and extract the hydrogen that way? We get our oxygen by catalytically splitting CO2, and boom - water. Energy expensive water for sure, peeing over the edge down onto the surface would be a crime punishable by death. But I dont see it as a limiting factor (except by economics).

You are right in terms of it not really practical for colonisation - but where is? But for example if we ever did get to asteroid mining, Venus could make a surprisingly useful layover point to refuel and restock.

I didn't think about getting hydrogen from sulfuric acid, but taking a look at Wikipedia, its sulfur dioxide found in any amount, so we're still missing hydrogen. We would still need to bring a very large amount of hydrogen with us to spend any length of time there.
I honestly think we're better off building larger and larger space stations and use centripetal force to combat the bone loss one would expect. There are far more accessible resources on asteroids than there are on planets also.

Well the way I understood it, although its a relative minor part of the atmosphere. There are still huge clouds containing H2S04 droplets, so we would run condensers to collect it, and then presumably electrolyse it to produce hydrogen.

Wed then have to combust it with oxygen produced from catalytically splitting CO2, to produce water.

Obviously it would be an incredibly complicated and expensive process compared to just fishing some out of a lake, but I think the idea is sustainability. As long as you had your condensers operational, the rate at which you could produce water would be very slow, yet theoretically limitless.

Once you had produced a useful amount of water, its not like wed be chucking it away again, you would need advanced filtration and recycling systems but nothing more advanced than what is possible today.

I like the idea of gigantic spinning space stations too mind you, but I read somewhere about the technical problems related with such designs. Not to mention the sheer cost associated with building such structures, stocking and equipping them, and then keeping them maintained.

I can't answer for Mars One, but as an established Mars organization that has been working on all these issues for 7 years now (not 7 months) and partnering with others who have been researching this stuff for decades, I'll try to answer from the MarsDrive perspective. You can find some of our designs in progress (not finished yet) here: http://www.marsdrive.com/Projects/MissionDesign

Unlike Mars One, we want to keep the astronauts alive and understand that ISS technologies, while similar for Mars needs, are not designed or appropriate for a deep space mission, and certainly not for a one way mission. 98% efficiency with the VPCAR (Vapor Phase Catalytic Ammonia Removal) system and technologies like this that are not yet in existence will be required as a minimum for deep space missions. I did note a lower oxygen flow rate with this system, causing burden on the compressor power, but it's pretty useful for what we need, yes. The development and testing of these in deep space environments we consider to be a part of the R&D cost, a cost that must be paid.

Other ISRU technologies will be needed in transit and on Mars from robust oxygen recyclers to methane/oxygen/water production on the surface for MAV and surface operations, and if you are going to keep people there for years, the technology readiness and longevity levels would be of extreme concern (at least they are to those of us who take this subject seriously).

We would not send food 8 years before, in fact possibly only the previous window (2 years), and we will be taking an CELLS system with greenhouse (at least at an experimental level) with us. As our design does not leave people on Mars indefinitely, this actually reduces some costs (such as constant resupply levels). What happens if a resupply mission fails? That's why we start with return missions.

Falcon Heavy- We all want this to work, and our current design is working off this too, but we do have a "from scratch" variation titled "Lilmax" by one of our designers that has wider PLF (6.5 m) and lifting ability- could be a modified Falcon or Atlas, yes. (as you can see with our 2009 design). We are aiming to design a light, compact and cheap mission, so we are currently designing new shapes and payload areas to fit our needs. Dragon as Mars One describe does not yet exist, and will still have to be paid for by someone.

We can use Bigelow or similar inflatable habs in transit and on the surface also to give the crew more than 20m3 living space. Our mobility focus will also help to aleviate cabin fever issues of being cooped up together too much.

We would jettison the waste in transit on ther first mission only as required (unless recycling won't use it). More advanced waste handling systems will come into play from the second mission after a permanent base site is established (point of the first mission).

First mission would be using hydroponics mostly, second mission more with soil as our knowledge increases from tests in the first mission. Hoagland's solution would be stored on first mission as we only want it for a testing phase, not a full blown greenhouse. Production from 3rd mission forward.

If a launch fails- Yes, the mission may have to move forward one window which is why our approach is to break up the cargo modules as much as possible and spread the risk. Same applies to crew launches/flights.

On the reality show stuff, yes, we have considered it as a revenue source, but taking into account the extreme psychological stress already on astronauts, having an intrusive show covering their every move and ordering them around is not going to happen for us. We will have coverage, and media rights will be sold, but these will represent a portion of the revenues, not the whole. (and that portion won't be as big as Mars One thinks).

Triple redundancy for suits, and as we are aiming at 6 crew, at least 2 will be able to conduct spacewalks, but we may investigate robotics for this solution as deep space is not the kind of environment we want too much exposure too (self healing materials can be used for example).

The reality is, osteoporosis is not the only problem in space for the human body, and that is why we are approaching this on a step by step basis. As long as we can prove that humans can indeed live on Mars for long periods via experimentation and examining them upon return, the longer term stays may be possible, but to assume that we can send people one way and everything will be fine is both irresponsible and based on non scientific assumptions from Mars One. Sending people one way makes for a sensational headline, and Mars One are not the first to think of this approach, but we would rather base our exploration and settlement of Mars on facts, not assumptions.

As to getting to Mars within a decade, no one knows at this point and it's extremely arrogant to think you can pin a year down when there are so many unknown areas yet to research- and no funds available.

MarsDrive is not perfect, we have flaws too, but we are not claiming to be the "one" to send humans to Mars on our own. This project will be a team effort pure and simple.

Thanks for your response. I believe he is getting followers on facebook/twitter and somehow making money.

I have a strong passion for space exploration myself, and am involved in it privately.. Been working on my facility for 4 years now. (still just a hobby, but will prevail one day i hope), so his guy that has a staff of 5, and none of them involved in any way for this industry is just insulting. look at his "team", and then look at his background of researching wind power. the company doesn't even make money, nor is it in any way related for this project. Everything is pure horse shit. this is a 5 team company, funded by a reality show.

all the systems, hell give me 10 years and I could not with 5 random graphic designers and design a good toilet system, because graphic design and marketing have nothing to do with rocket fucking science.

I really am pissed as you can see with my many responses about the bullshit, and scammers, i loathe scammers, he wants 6 billion usd, with a team of marketers, NO engineers, lol